Tag: fucking diet

I have gained 200g. That’s the same less than statistically insignificant 200g that I lost last week. This week I’m menstruating so it could easily be that.

I am thoroughly pissed off with this diet. It’s partly because I’m not happy with my attitude to food right now and partly because the “Beast from the East” is making it impossible to properly plan my shopping.

I’m disabled so I rely on food deliveries to get the bulk of my groceries. I get a few things locally but my condition is variable so I can’t rely on being able to get out to the shops. So I can get a bit intense when Sainsbury decide to cancel deliveries with no notice or warning. Not even an email to say “No food for you. Soz,” with a handy ‘reschedule for a day when the weather isn’t trying to kill us all’ link to click on.

My options now are to come off the diet and eat all the store cupboard stuff that doesn’t really fit it until I can get a delivery or to go on the ‘I can’t eat anything because Sainsbury is run by bastards’ diet. Or find out how many of the local takeaway delivery drivers are nuts enough to be driving in this weather.

Before I begin my update I have a message for the various diet and weight loss blogs that keep liking these posts and following this blog. Please stop. This blog is not for you. I regard the entire weight loss industry as predatory. Fat people are not necessarily unhealthy. A person’s size has nothing to do with their value as a human being. 95% of all diets fail and the 5% that succeed only do so by the most meagre definition of success.

I’m not dieting out of any hope that my life will improve or that I will look better or feel better. I’m dieting to prove my doctor wrong. I’m dieting because that’s a thing I have to do if I eventually want to get surgery for my lipoedema. And I don’t have to like it. In fact I hate it. It makes my life so much harder than it needs to be and my life was already pretty fucking hard.

And now we continue with our regularly scheduled update. This week I lost 0.2kg (200g or less than half a pound). That doesn’t seem statistically significant to me. On the other hand it’s not weight gain so I’m not complaining. I had to take a break from my push to 100 squats because my knee objected.

I also had an appointment with the Lymphoedema Nurse to check on my compression tights. She’s suggested replacement compression garments with lower level compression and in a different design. The hope is that they’ll be easier to get on and that I’ll be able to wear them all day.

Every day the first thing that I do is to fight with my compression tights. And also my self image and my failing body. I say it’s the first thing but really the first thing I do is to wake up and curse the fact that I am awake and alive and that my life is still like this. Then I muster my limited mental resources for the act of will necessary to get out of bed. Then I fight.

It makes me so fucking angry. Getting up every day to fight a losing battle against the Lipoedema that will eventually turn me into a blob in a wheelchair. Being faced with the reality that I’m not strong enough to get my fucking tights on properly. Knowing that if I can’t master compression garments I won’t even get on the waiting list for the surgery that is the only lasting treatment.

Spending the next hour with weak arms and shaking hands because I’m not getting any better at this. Unable to go anywhere because I can’t get the tights to stay up while I’m walking. Fighting the urge to stab myself. To hack at the useless, lumpy flesh that’s destroying my joints.

And then I spend the rest of the day surrounded by the evidence of the chores that I can’t do because I’m too exhausted from my battle.

I’m trying to get better. I diet even though I hate it and I know it won’t fix the lipoedema. I try to exercise even though that hurts and so far actually seems to be making things worse. I’ve been trying the 100 squat challenge. It took me 3 days to get up to 100 squats but I haven’t managed it since because my right knee hurts too much. The knee pain woke me up this morning.

And the absolute worst is the feeling that it’s all worthless. What’s the point of all this fighting? All it does it makes me angry and tired. I’m giving up the ability to get stuff done now for the chance to be able to do more in the future. But that’s just not going to happen. I don’t get that lucky. This fight is doomed to failure and by fighting I’m making everything worse right now.

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This week I have either lost 2kg, gained 2 kg or stayed the same depending on exactly where I put the scales and how I stand on them. Clearly I’m going to have to pay much more attention to their exact position on the floor in order to get any idea of the actual trend.

I’m not happy with my eating this week but it was better than the last week. Hopefully next week will be better.

This week has been one long round of the period from hell, struggling with compression tights and attempting to schedule my days so that I get anything done. It’s been two steps forward and three steps back. I still can’t wear my compression tights out anywhere because I can’t get them on properly and that means they just slide down the moment I try to walk anywhere.

Putting the tights on is so exhausting that I’ve only managed one workout this week. I can’t exercise with them on, I have to prioritise wearing them and when I have to take them off I’ve got nothing left for lifting weights. I really hope I get better at this.

I have lost 1.3kg ( just over 2 and a half pounds). I’m sure some of that is fluid because I had one day of wearing compression tights before the weigh-in.

I haven’t been paying that much attention to the calories but I have been careful about my food choices, particularly around the proportion of carbohydrates. I’m not happy with my eating yet. I’m not tracking my food carefully enough and I doubt that I’ll be able to keep on losing weight like this.

I’ve talked before about how important preparation is to sticking to a food plan. If you don’t get the shopping right then you’re setting yourself up to fail. This week we did get the shopping right but having the right food in the house is not enough on its own. My head isn’t in quite the right place for sticking to this diet and I’m not sure what’s wrong.

Maybe the problem is that I’ve been so angry for the last few weeks. Women are often socialised to eat our feelings and anger is probably the least acceptable emotion for women to express. Or maybe the problem is that everything just feels futile at the moment.

Still not back on the diet but I do have a food delivery planned so by the time you read this I should be thoroughly miserable and craving bread. I did weigh myself this week and I’d lost 0.6kg which is just over a pound. It’s bound to be fluid rather than fat though.

Still no sign of the NHS compression garments but I’ve been using the compression leggings that I bought for exercising in. They’re more comfortable than I was expecting. I went for a walk today and it was a lot easier than I was expecting. I think the leggings might be helping to stabilize my knee joints.

I have been strength training but I’m so out of shape that I’m still concentrating on form rather than adding resistance. I think it’s a bad idea to lift heavy with poor form. I’m also trying to build a habit of exercise. If exercising feels natural to me then I’m more likely to do it. I think at this stage that’s more important than pushing myself.

Because I am not back on the diet yet. I did weigh myself as usual and I have gained 1.3kg (2.8 pounds). Some of it will be fluid but some of it is bound to be fat.

I’m not on the diet because I have failed at step one of any good eating plan. The shopping. If you don’t have enough of the right food in the house then you end up eating the wrong food or the right foods in the wrong combinations.

I can’t fix the shopping problem because we are too broke this week. It will be at least a week and a half before I can stock up on the right foods.

My visit to the nurse this week also ended in failure. I don’t have the compression garments I need for my lipoedema because the manufacturer didn’t make them. There is clearly some whole big thing going on there but I can’t work out what it is and I find it hilarious that mine was the only order that didn’t get made.

I ordered some compression leggings from a company that makes gym wear and I’m wearing them right now. They’re comfortable enough and I can do my weight training in them. They even look ok, though obviously not on me. Now I just have to work out how to stop feeling guilty for spending money on them.

Since dropping the diet for the festive season I’ve lost 0.5kg (roughly a pound). But that’s oversimplifying things a bit.

I’ve weighed myself 3 times since the last update. At the first one I’d put on 3kg (just over 6 and a half pounds, nearly half a stone). I nearly panicked and went back on the diet but we’d already bought the Christmas food. And the next day my period started. I concluded that the weight gain was mostly down to fluid.

The next time I got on the scales I’d lost the 3kg and was back to exactly the same weight. So presumably it was fluid.

The third time I’d lost the previously mentioned 0.5kg. That’s probably also fluid. It’s unlikely to be fat and I hope it’s not muscle because I have been about as active as I was before Christmas.

Today I’m back to actively tracking food and I intend to ease back into restricting first the carbohydrates and then the calories. I also intend to actually start weight training. I should have started already but putting together the squat stand and the bench is looking like a two person job and my beloved is currently laid low by a cold.

This will probably be the last diet update of 2017. This week I lost 0.8kg which is just over a pound and a half. That’s pretty good given that for the last two days I’ve shifted from weight loss eating to weight maintenance eating. I plan to stay in maintenance mode till the new year.

The maintenance version of my eating plan has more calories and less focus on restricting carbohydrates but is still lower carb than I would normally eat and I’m still tracking all food. I will also be consuming alcohol which is something I’ve barely done since September. Booze is high in calories and drunk people make poor food choices which is why I’ve been avoiding it. I’m not going to go overboard though. We’ve already bought in all the drink we’ll have between now and the new year.

My total weight loss for the year now stands at 12.3 kg (27 pounds or just a pound short of 2 stone). That’s pretty good. I mean you can’t really see it except for in my face and hands. I had hoped that by now I’d be slightly slimmer round the middle since my waist is one of the places that there shouldn’t be Lipoedema fat but so far no luck.

I intend to start my exercise plan between Christmas and the New Year. Wish me luck.

Since writers don’t have employers we don’t get handy annual performance reviews to tell us how we’re doing. So I’ve decided to do one for myself.

My primary focus for the last year has been to move toward getting published. So that’s a fail then. I have queried some agents. Not as many agents as I could have so that’s something that I could improve on next year. All the ones that have replied have said no. There’s still one I’m waiting to hear back from but I don’t expect to hear anything now until the new year. I did pitch my finished novel at Bloody Scotland and while I got some useful feedback to improve my query letter it hasn’t led anywhere.

Since my main focus is about being a professional writer rather than simply publishing one book I’ve also been writing. I’ve been re-writing and editing a sequel to my finished novel. I wrote the first draft of a novella and for NaNoWriMo I wrote the first draft of a straight crime novel. That’s pretty good but there’s room for improvement. I think I should aim to write at least one first draft and move at least one novel to the completed stage every year.

My secondary focus was to build the skills I need if I have to self publish. I’ve have been moving in the right direction but not nearly far enough. I’ve taken up calligraphy, which can be used to do cover art, and I’m improving my design skills. If I absolutely have to I could probably create a professional looking front cover.

I also wanted to build up this blog. I think that’s been fairly successful. There are more people reading it regularly, I’ve been posting at least 3 times a week most weeks since the beginning of April. Hopefully if I do publish a book at least one of you will actually be willing to pay to read it.

Since July I’ve been trying to get something, anything, done about my Lipoedema. After 4 Doctor appointments and 2 nurse appointments at my local practice, a trip to the leg ulcer clinic in Dunfermline and another to the Lymphoedema clinic in Kirkcaldy I may be only a couple of weeks away from trying on my first compression garments.

Since September I’ve been dieting because apparently you have to if you want to get your Lipoedema treated even though calorie restriction isn’t a treatment for Lipoedema. I’ve lost 11.5 kg and I’m hoping to get back into weight training. I’m just waiting for my equipment to be delivered.

So I haven’t been entirely useless this year but it still feels a bit unsatisfying. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that this year has felt like someone raised the corpse of 2016, decked it out in leather and spikes, stuck it behind the wheel of a steamroller and then pointed it at democracy.